NATIONAL Assembly Speaker Baleka Mbete, it must be said, has the manner of an old circuit court magistrate. It may well be that the imperious tone and the schoolmarmish condescensions come with the job but, up in the press gallery, the nagging suspicion that she could be quite moved by the sound of her own voice was a persistent one. If so, then she certainly must have enjoyed herself on Thursday afternoon for she had an ultra-shrill and shouty time of it.

But despite the siren stridency of her calls for order and her threats to have Economic Freedom Fighters MPs thrown out the National Assembly for ignoring her instructions to sit down and shut up, the day's business - President Jacob Zuma's responses to questions from MPs - was duly abandoned amid chaos and confusion. But not without a last, characteristically verbose Mbete bray:

"But South Africa knows that the President was here to perform his constitutional duty and was not given the opportunity to finish off. And therefore, at this point, we would like to adjourn the sitting for the rest of the House. . . for the rest of the day and we can continue to go and consult on any elements that require us to continue to consult. But we will be back continuing with the work of Parliament as of tomorrow until such time we have agreed with the office of the President as to finishing off the questions to the President and therefore, honourable members, on that note, and I can assure you that we were in consultation with all opposition parties, an agreement has been reached on how we should approach the rest of the work of this afternoon.

"Honourable members, I'm told there is no sitting tomorrow [Friday] and therefore we will then proceed according to the programme of Parliament as has been announced and honorable members with those words may I adjourn the House. . . the sitting of this House."

Somewhere beneath all this waffle was an important question, one which concerned, not so much when Zuma would finish with his answers to MPs' questions - but when he would start.

He had shrugged off DA parliamentary leader Mmusi Maimane's inquiry, for example, about the possible suspension of the National Director of Public Prosecutions, Mxolisi Nxasana. What the leader of the opposition got by way of a response was a masterclass in evasion.

First there came Zuma's "scripted" answer, read painfully in Manglish - that cloddy delivery in which words sound as if they'd fought their way out of his mouth. The gist of it was this: Zuma met Nxasana recently and would soon be meeting with him again. During their meeting, Nxasana raised certain points, and Zuma needed time to mull over them. No details of these certain points were given.

However, it was with the DA leader's supplementary question that Zuma - now thinking on his feet, as it were, and speaking (rather well) off the cuff - revealed a glimpse of reptilian survival skills. 

Maimane had wanted to know whether the President saw any conflict of interest in the fact that it was he who got to appoint the one person who would ultimately decide whether or not to reinstate the 781 fraud and corruption charges against him.

This, apparently, was a waste-of-time type query. For, as far as Zuma was concerned, there were no fraud and corruption charges to speak of. "The honourable member may know better," he smirked, "[but] I have no charges against me and therefore the matter of a conflict of interest does not arise . . .  Your question is not a serious question. You are just picking up things there and there."

And with that he turned to the ANC benches, beaming. Sophistry was perhaps too sophisticated a term, but they loved it all the same. And, clearly, so did Zuma, who seemed surprised at his own wit. A strange, gurgling sound filled the chamber. It was the President's laughter; he was enjoying himself immensely.

Then came EFF commander-in-chief Julius Malema's concern as to when Zuma would respond to Pubic Protector Thuli Madonsela's report on the Nkandla security upgrades. 

Which seemed a still-born pursuit. Or so Zuma had hoped. 

The President had handed in his long-delayed response to Mandonsela's report and the Special Investigations Unit and inter-ministerial Nkandla task team whitewashes the week before. Save for Police Minister Nathi Nhleko's decision as to how much, if anything, Zuma should repay for the upgrades at his home - as directed by Madonsela - the matter was dead and buried. And so, back to the Manglish as the President listlessly plodded through his typed-up notes and tossed off some stumblebumf to the effect that that his aforementioned report of August 14 was his final word on the matter.

It wasn't good enough for Malema. "The question we are asking here today, and we are not going to leave before we get an answer, is. . ." - Zuma was laughing now, hard - ". . . is when are you paying the money? Because the Public Protector has instructed you to pay the money--"

An ANC backbencher had now interrupted the EFF leader on a point of order. He wasn't pleased. "These things of ‘point of order'," Malema snapped, "the ones that you are hiding behind. You are very good at that, because every time reports are brought here,  it's ‘Point of order, point of order!' We are here to ask questions, and we need answers! Please!"

The plea drew loud jeers from the ANC benches, and Zuma rose to inform the House that, in effect, there would be no more answers. "As I said in my answer, I've responded to the reports about Nkandla . . . I hope we are not going to have a debate on this issue because I have responded appropriately."

Minutes later, the EFF's Floyd Shivambu got into something of a ding-dong with Mbete. He'd risen on a point of order - about what, I cannot say, for a high-pitched Mbete was now in overdrive, drowning him out. "Order! Order! I will throw you out of the House if you don't listen! Serjeant-at-arms! Please assist me in removing these members who are not serious about this sitting! . . . I am not recognising you!"

Then came the afternoon's unravelling. Amid the jeers and shouts, there came a loud, rather distinct bellow: "We want the money!" It EFF MP Khanyisile Litchfield-Tshabalala - the first woman, it says here, to achieve the rank of rear admiral in the SA Navy - and her interjection was rather startling; everyone in the House heard it, and minutes later it was taken up as a chant by the EFF MPs, who pounded away with their hard hats on their benches. "We want the money! We want the money! Pay back the money. . ."

Mbete tried to get them to stop. But they were having none of it. The House was suspended, and MPs left the chamber, save for the EFF caucus, who were now singing and clapping. Malema, standing at his seat, began to wobble in a puzzling manner. Eventually, it became apparent that this was how a person toyi toyi-ed in overalls that were too tight. 

In the public gallery, EFF supporters who had ignored Mbete's order that the National Assembly be vacated to allow security to deal with the rowdies, joined in the jeering and clapping. 

Reporters were instructed to leave the press gallery. We too refused to move. A strange stand-off ensured. We had an idea that if we left the chamber, then we'd miss seeing the EFF being ejected from the chamber in the sort of ham-fisted manner in which they'd recently been bundled out of the Gauteng provincial legislature. And, some minutes later, from the floor of the otherwise deserted chamber, Malema looked up at the press gallery and laughed, "Don't go, you press people. Stay there!" 

Several of the Western Cape's heaviest riot cops had gathered outside the chamber doors, but as time passed it became apparent that a goon squad-style ousting of the EFF MPs was not on the cards this afternoon. Disappointing for us, I suppose.

After about 40 minutes, Telecommunications and Postal Services Minister Siyabonga Cwele, the former Minister of Intelligence, and the Minister of State Security, David Mahlobo, re-entered the chamber and had a brief pow-wow with Malema and Shivambu. Minutes later, MPs streamed back into the chamber and Mbete closed proceedings. 

The EFF, it seemed, had won the day. Or had they?

Some hours later, after minor scuffles outside the parliamentary buildings between  EFF members, ANC supporters and the police, Mbete told a press conference that Parliament would establish a committee to investigate the EFF's conduct and discuss a possible punishment for those MPs who'd disrupted proceedings. 

"The feeling among members of Parliament from across the board since the beginning of the fifth Parliament," Mbete said, "is that there has come into the House . . . a group of people who have no respect for Parliament as an institution of the people of South Africa who elect representatives that come and play a role in the House. They [EFF] have definitely shown no regard for the conventions of Parliament. . .

"The House has been joined by people who are reckless with the dignity of our people that elect Parliament and that's not something that's being appreciated by many of our people out there, by the parties in the House. We can differ when we debate politically, but if there's one thing we all are agreed on as parties and members of Parliament is that we respect our Parliament because we respect our people and we therefore work with each other with respect."

Malema, naturally, had his own press briefing and assured reporters his party would still get Zuma to answer for the Nkandla upgrades. "We remember Guptagate," he was reported to have said. "We know what happened there. We know what happened to Nkandla - where [Madonsela] said he must pay back the money."

Parliament, he added, had been "useless" for two decades. "How do we get a parliamentary system that holds the executive to account in a more efficient way? Not what's been happening since 1994," he said to reporters.

So ended what Business Day later described as "mayhem unprecedented in the 20 years of a democratic Parliament." The general opinion among many of those present was that there would be others like it - and perhaps sooner rather than later.

This article was published with the assistance of the Friedrich-Naumann-Stiftung für die Freiheit (FNF). The views presented in the article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of FNF.

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